I am saying we should use something that is not called "version number". On the IRC list I have suggested -- without too much thought behind it yet -- that we construct an "upgrade graph"; package maintainers can specify which package can be thought of as an automatic improvement on another, and some appropriate part of the Planet mechanism can therefore follow a chain of these links to find the best available candidate for a require. That allows package names, version numbers, and other string-based user-readable package-identifying features to be uninterpreted, and written however the maintainer wants.
Carl Eastlund On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Robby Findler <ro...@eecs.northwestern.edu> wrote: > Carl: your message is unclear to me. Are you saying that attempting to > solve the problem of matching up require requests with available > versions of software packages is hopeless and we shouldn't attempt it, > or are you saying that we should use something that is not (literally) > called "version number" or are you saying something else? > > Robby > > On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Carl Eastlund <c...@ccs.neu.edu> wrote: >> Do you mean to inherit Planet's current "version number" semantics? >> Ugggghhhhh. Assigning a fixed structure and semantics to version >> numbers was one of the worst things Planet did. Dracula is up to >> 8:18, and goodness knows what that means. It does not mean there have >> been 8 significantly different versions of Dracula, such that I gave >> the release bigger fanfare than usual. It means there were 8 times >> when some potential incompatibility between releases occurred to me >> between the time of package creation and the time of upload. That >> should not be how version numbers are determined. It is not at all >> clear to me that version numbers should serve as an automatic metric >> of compatibility or upgrade-ability; let's either come up with a >> metric that is more to the point, or stop trying so hard to enforce >> things like "no compatibility regressions" that are often hard to >> detect in the first place. >> >> Carl Eastlund >> >> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Jay McCarthy <jay.mccar...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> I don't feel strongly about this and you seem to, so supposing we >>> support any conflicting installations, it makes sense for Planet 2.0 >>> to have both major and minor versions. >>> >>> Jay >>> >>> 2011/2/19 Robby Findler <ro...@eecs.northwestern.edu>: >>>> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Robby Findler >>>> <ro...@eecs.northwestern.edu> wrote: >>>>> It looks to me like you there is relevant, important metadata that >>>>> you're making someone fold into an implicit place instead of an >>>>> explicit one. >>>>> >>>>> Will you have a convention for these? What if I decide to call mine >>>>> "libgtk2.0" and someone else calls theirs "somepackage-2"? That >>>>> doesn't seem good fo >>>> >>>> [ Sorry; got distracted here and forgot to come back. ] >>>> >>>> That doesn't seem good for users who are trying to find packages. >>>> Especially if I were to call mine "2-somepackage" (you may think this >>>> far fetched, but if you look you should find an example of this in our >>>> current collection tree....) >>>> >>>> Robby _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
